Wet weather is often a benefit to the fox. Like all accomplished night thieves he is more venturesome in attacking hand-reared birds when the wind howls and rain beats heavily down. The storm drowns what little noise there may be from his stealthy feet; and the scent of the birds is stronger by reason of their steaming bodies. In wet autumns foxes take their heaviest toll of the young birds that have grown to a fair size—the dripping trees incline the birds to sleep on the ground long after they are able to fly, and should be flying nightly to roost. Grave risks are run by birds that sit on their nests through wet June nights.
Foxes at Pheasant Shoots
Foxes are sometimes found among pheasants where wire, or string netting, has been set up at the flushing-places, to prevent the birds running instead of flying, and to cause them to rise and fly at a sporting height and pace. When it is too late, and the beaters have come to the flushing-place, the indignant "cock-ups" of the pheasants are heard, and then they rise in a great rush, too thick and fast for the convenience of sport. We remember one case where a stampede of pheasants so enraged a sportsman that he ordered his loader to bowl over the old sinner of a fox. Should a fox show himself during the beating of a wood, it would be wise to give him every chance to escape. What usually happens is that the beaters force him forward with sticks and curses, and the guns drive him back with cries of "Tally-ho!"
But the fox's appearance is disconcerting; and there is a touch of irony in the thought that a crafty old fox, who in his time has slain more than his share of pheasants, should yet be in at the death of those that escaped him.
Pheasants that go to Ground
The careful gamekeeper will stop all the rabbit-holes round about the place where he hopes that many pheasants will fall—perhaps for fifty yards before and behind the stands of the sportsmen. Many a pheasant is lost through going to ground in a rabbit-burrow, and there is seldom a spade and a grub-axe at hand. The pheasant may be winged or otherwise wounded, and if it cannot be dug out may die a lingering death. But many a crafty old cock has revealed his hiding-place because, while he has taken the precaution of drawing his body into a burrow, he has forgotten his tail. Only one partridge, in our experience, has run to ground after being winged.